BLACKCAPS Hosting Australia - Second Test Debrief
This guy aye, what a battler.
Trans-Tasman Test cricket is a bit like Ashes cricket, especially when the retirement of such an influential kiwi cricketer like Brendon McCullum. There's so much going on in the periphery thanks to the nature of kiwis and Australians, more tension, more pressure, more chirping, more worry; everything is amplified. None of this, especially the good vibes that we were left with as McCullum retired, should distract us from the fact that the BLACKCAPS were thoroughly out-played across two Tests on home soil by Australia.
Australia finish as the No.1 ranked Test team in the world, something that our kiwi cricketers talked about not letting happen ahead of this series. Australia showed throughout this series that they are simply better at Test cricket as their batsmen batted time and their bowlers showed off a wider variety of skills and ability than their kiwi opponents. This was evident in the first Test, however the extent of the difference between these teams became more apparent as the BLACKCAPS were unable to make the necessary improvements in the second Test.
McCullum's frantic/beautiful innings in the first innings which came in conjunction with 72 from Corey Anderson and 58 from BJ Watling, all three innings came at better than a run a ball; even Watling's 58 runs came off 57 balls. This was nice and spread the good vibes throughout Aotearoa, as a green pitch and quality Australian bowling kept contributions from other batsmen to a minimal (Matt Henry was the next best kiwi batsman with 21 runs).
Life is difficult as a batsman on such a pitch on the first morning, hence it's hard to be overly critical of that BLACKCAPS innings. Throughout the Australian innings in which Joe Burns (170) and Steve Smith (138) displayed expert knowledge of Test batsmanship and their own strengths/weaknesses, we kept hearing how the Hagley Oval pitch was flattening out.
The BLACKCAPS however once again showed an inability or desire to really knuckle down and put away certain shots. Kane Williamson finally found some runs (97) and Henry showed his growing stature as a tail-ender with 66, but besides those innings and rather useless 40s from Anderson and Watling, we were once again treated to a misfiring batting display.
I found myself questioning the way the kiwi batsmen went about their business and pondered McCullum's influence on this, given how he himself bats etc. This would be highly unfair to McCullum though as it wasn't the intent to attack or score runs that saw Tom Latham, Martin Guptill and Henry Nicholls combine for only 70 runs in this Test. These three batsmen - who must bare the responsibility of scoring most of the BLACKCAPS' runs along with Williamson - simply weren't good enough to defend, leave and then enjoy bad deliveries. Regardless of what their intention was, it just felt as though these three would get out to a good ball soon enough, unable to protect their wicket.
Green pitches and Australia's inability to face good swing bowling? Well our top-four combined for 174 runs and Australia's top-four combined for 529 runs. Perhaps it is our batsmen who need to figure out batting in the whites against the moving ball.
Of course this leads me on to the inability of the BLACKCAPS bowlers to really pose a threat. I'll explore a few theories from this Test series regarding our bowling situation but the Australian bowlers, much like their batsmen displayed a greater knowledge of what it takes to dismiss batsmen on pitches that aren't hooping/nibbling around. This was also evident in the first Test as the Aussie bowlers combined patience with a probing line and length, gleefully accepted a false shot.
A hallmark of the Australian bowling display was their ability to swing the ball both ways via reverse swing. The Aussies just had more tricks in their toolbelt than the kiwi bowlers and I'd suggest that this stems from bowling in less favourable conditions more regularly.
But when you consider the best bowling performances from either team, it makes for rather interesting ponderings. Neil Wagner took 6/106 off 32.1 overs thanks to brute force, bouncing the Australian batsmen out while Jackson Bird took 5/59 off 17.1 overs with typical medium-pace bowling in which he moved the ball around. The kiwi bowler bounced blokes out because nothing else was working and the Aussie bowler (plus 4/77 off 26 overs from James Pattinson) let the ball do the talking, moving it both ways at 135km/h.
It wasn't as if there was nothing in the pitch, or that the ball wasn't swinging just a smidgen. The kiwi bowlers just weren't good enough to make the most of any small helping hand from the conditions or pitch and that's troubling, especially given how, well, borderline arrogant we are with Tim Southee and Trent Boult.
And that's how it ends. Australia's batsmen came to Aotearoa with a cloud hanging over their head as they apparently couldn't face the moving ball. Australia's bowlers came to Aotearoa as one of the more unfancied Aussie bowling attacks we've ever seen.
Australia leave as the best Test team in the world after dominating the BLACKCAPS with both bat and ball.